Jerry Hooker has been collecting motorcycle ephemera since 1995, and has accumulated one of the largest collections of pre-1940 postcards and advertising posters anywhere: more than 1,000 postcards at last count. He spends much of his time sifting through boxes of material, picking up most of his collection from swap meets, garage sales and online auctions. He began offering matted reproductions of some of his vintage postcards and posters on his website in 2001, and later added wonderfully redone 11×14 poster-sized prints.

Hooker has now produced a book containing photos of more than 700 of these postcards that should appeal to any vintage bike enthusiast or postcard collector. Published in hardcover, Motorcycling Through History During the Golden Age of Postcards identifies each postcard with a description of the content, and contains many photos of the flipside postage cancel, showing where it was sent from and to, the stamp used and the messages written on the items.

Chapters in the book include racing, advertising, military, sidecars, American motorcycles and European motorcycles. There are also chapters for humorous postcards and holiday cards (Hooker has a particular interest in “Santa on a bike” collectibles).

Although Harley-Davidson and Indian postcards are easier to locate, and are included in the book, Hooker focuses on manufacturers that have long since disappeared – names few of us have heard of like Haverford, Pirate, Waverly, Thiem, Paramount and Schickel.

The book, as well as his prints and poster-sized reproductions, are available on Hooker’s website, Motorcycle-Memories.com.